Chapter 7: The Missing Daughter.

  We went up above, Merillax leading me as I numbly clutched the sword and kept replaying the rage in the eyes of the man I’d killed, he’d done something to those eyes. All of the hunters I’d seen so far had a strange colour to their iris, almost a glow. I guessed that was why they could see in the dark. It was another reminder of how weird this new world would be, magic was real and I possessed a school of it, the ability to convert candles into implements of magical power. Merillax put a hand on her hip and leaned back against a large, bare rock at the cave's entrance.

  “My name is Jack, by the way, Jack Wells” I kicked myself for giving my full name to a demon but didn’t immediately smell brimstone or feel any different so I just ignored the potential fuck up and waited for her to respond.

  “Well, well, you have more backbone than I thought Jack. I didn’t even have to make you kill that guy. You just did it.”

  I wanted to be angry, but it had been him or me and he had no qualms about putting me down. I remembered the way it felt to be helpless as the blade came down and felt a little better about the horrible death he got. Still not great, but better.

  “We got sidetracked earlier, the hunter coming in and all. I had a question about Classes?”

  Merillax raised an eyebrow at the change of conversation but waited expectantly, corners of her lips quirked up in obvious amusement.

  “Look Merri I’m going to be straight with you here. If I accidentally picked a class could I change it later? If I didn’t want to be a Spell Candler for instance?” Her lips turned up all the way into a radiant smile and then worst of all she giggled at me.

  “Spell Candler? Is that what you did to the hunter before? I thought you were a wizard of some sort. You're saying you wield a school of candle-based magic?”

  I hung my head theatrically, leaning on my self-deprecating nature. “I’m afraid so, is that bad?”

  Merri shrugged. “Maybe, probably not, where exactly did you learn this discipline from?”

  “I just opened a kind of menu inside my head and it gave me tons of choices to look at, I was able to filter it by aptitude and apparently a hobby I took as a kid and sort of honed throughout my life made me eligible for this class. I didn’t mean to pick it, but here I am”

  Merri looked nonplussed for a moment.

  “A menu in your head?” Understanding dawned on her face. “You don’t mean the Akashic Record do you?”

  I shrugged oafishly. “It was a long list of classes, hundreds, maybe thousands of them even after I started filtering them down, but once I clicked on one to see what it was. Well, I got stuck with it, I'm a Spell-Chandler”

  Merri bit her lip before she spoke again; sounding almost awed. “Oh, wow. Normally only trained scholars can access the record and using it always carries a price. Most of the time you can mix and match as many classes as you want, as long as you're eligible for them anyway. Theres a lot of classes no one is eligible for though, as well as classes that can’t be combined with others. It's very difficult to bypass those eligibility requirements, very difficult in fact. But if someone can access the Akashic record, well they can pick any class, including those they shouldn’t be eligible for.”

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  I got the picture, the price wouldn’t be something I liked though.

  “In addition to accessing normally unavailable or lost classes a scholar who accesses the Akashic learns at an accelerated rate without strictly needing a trainer or study. The information should just appear in your mind as you exercise and train your power. Should work out to about double the levelling speed”

  Merrilax was still talking but my mind was stuck all the way back at the start of her exposition. “What was the price you mentioned?”

  Merri hesitated, trying not to laugh at me. “Well, You can’t gain another class in the normal way and the Akashic will likely burn your mind to ashes if you keep trying to access it directly.”

  I exhaled slowly, "Yeah, sounds about right."

  Jack Wells, Spell Chandler Level: 3

  I sat by the fire examining my character sheet trying not to kick myself for my mistakes. I had a goal now, Merri had explained a few things about the world and what my next steps should be. The nearest settlement, the mountain village I’d seen earlier was home to 400 people and run by a noble family called the Delacrofts.

  “The Lady Delacroft has two daughters, real prodigies for a backwater like this I’ve heard, although according to local gossip, the Lady is at a loss on what to do with them. Apparently one of those daughters is rather too bookish and shy for her own good while the other is a bit of a hellion, sneaking out at night, carrying a sword, and picking fights wherever she can”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “How did you get your gossip” Merri blushed and shot me a very quick glare that melted back into a smile, she was certainly cute.

  “It wasn’t pillow talk if that’s what you were implying! I already told you I haven’t fucked any of you since I got up here, I just disguised myself, pretended to be an adventurer and asked around for any leads on local quests”

  I doubted that had been very difficult, the demon obviously had some kind of mind-altering aura, charm magic maybe. Something that had made me align with her despite her nature, something that had briefly turned me into a stupid teenager when looking at her, I wondered how I could resist effects like that in the future.

  Almost as if she could read my mind the demoness batted her eyelashes at me and I shook my head. “Knock it off Merri, that trick won't work forever”

  Merri went on to explain the situation in detail. The more rambunctious of these noble daughters had her mother apoplectic with fury. She had signed up with a band of adventurers and left town unannounced just a few days before. The leader of the band was a half-elf rogue named Ruthax who had discovered a cave full of monsters and Lady Selena Delacroft’s younger daughter Luna had signed on under a false identity and disappeared with them.

  Merri had gotten this information by spying on the noble’s estate and decided to hunt the missing lady down and return her to her mother in hopes of proving herself to the noblewoman and receiving sanctuary from any demon hunters still on her tail.

  This had been the second cave she had explored on the hunt for the missing lady and of course the demon hunters had cornered her, I knew the gory end of that tale.

  “Ok Merri, what’s the plan then? I’m happy to help hunt down the daughter and vouch for you if you want to work together but I won’t be much help against any more of those demon hunters and I’ll probably get killed if I try to fight a cave full of monsters” Merri had been ecstatic to hear that and waved away my reservations about getting torn to pieces in a cave.

  As I’ve mentioned, she was pretty convincing for a sadistic, demonic killer and the two of us agreed to split up and hunt for Luna, she gave me directions to some unexplored caves she’d read about and told me she would contact me if she found the lady first.

  The plan had some huge flaws. The biggest flaw besides my ineptitude was that if I found the girl but couldn’t save her by myself I wouldn’t be able to contact Merri. Merri pointed out that I could make a fire very easily and she could find me that way, no telepathy, no teleportation. Just smoke signals.

  I didn’t have a better plan so I agreed and Merri embraced me in a sweet, clinging hug. I could smell incense-like perfume and was well aware of her attempt at manipulation though I couldn't seem to muster the appropriate level of anger, mind magic was bullshit. “Thank you, Jack, thank you for trusting me, I swear I won’t make you regret it”

  Then the murderous demoness had disappeared in a puff of black flames leaving me blue-balled as all hell. I deserved it for not eagerly accepting her advances in the charnel-chamber but I still felt like shit as I trudged through the woods with a looted longsword in my trolley-wagon, scabbard tied through the mesh so that I could easily draw the weapon if I needed it and a new runic coat over my torso.